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dlove67 writes "PSX-scene.com reports that the first PS3 modchip has been tested and confirmed to be working. Running off of a USB dongle, it appears to be relatively user friendly and claims to not void your warranty. Online gameplay works (at least for the time being). It's been a long time coming; cheers to the PS Jailbreak Guys." The video is attached below if you're curious. Can't help but point out that this wouldn't have happened if Sony hadn't decided to yank the Boot Other OS option.

The whole reason I bought a PS3 was because it was a closed platform, and because it was a closed platform, it was harder to hack the games. I like playing FPS games and they are absolutely ruined as soon as you have to deal with wallhacks and aimbots. Will this new hack open the door to programs like that?

Sony over did it, people wouldn't have been anywhere near as interested in cracking it if they hadn't vastly overstepped there rights. I can understand locking down multiplayer games, but locking down single player games so that you can't do those homebrew was just asinine. And there's no reason why they had to do it, I'm sure they could've just kept homebrew off certain servers. I probably wouldn't have bought mine had I realized that they'd taken out so many of the PS3 components to make money without pro

Did you still want to keep Other OS? You had the option to decline their update.

The problem is that by declining the update, you were effectively locked out of online game play, including for games you already owned. So, they didn't send killbots to your house, but they did force you to chose other OS xor games. For those that bought the console because it could do both, this really sucks.

How about when I bought Red Dead Redemption, only to find out that I had to "upgrade" my firmware in order to play that? Did Sony have a right to do that? I know the answer is yes. But it still leaves a bad taset in my mouth, and it's gonna make it harder to justify Sony purchases in the future because of that.

The main problem here is that Sony just likes being in your face and telling you "play by our rules, we're bigger, meaner, and we don't care". I don't think that's a message you want your customers to hear. One thing is what rights one has, another thing is not being a dick. The fact that what Sony did was perhaps legal and "OK" doesn't make it any less, um, dickish.

As for the arguments people have that somehow a closed platform has to stay closed so that people don't run hacked games: man, I didn't take th

So if you had an iphone and apple said 'we are removing the application functionality in the next update, however it's optional so you can retain the application functionality, but you won't be able to make calls.' you would see that as acceptable?

Well that example is a little different. Apple has no right to kick people off of AT&T's network. but...

Sure, I would see that as acceptable. I don't see anything wrong with Apple/At&T making decisions about what devices and software packages can access their network. I would imagine that would let me out of whatever service contract I had with AT&T though.

Sony's situation is different. They cut off access to a free non-contractual service, and they had always reserved the right to change

It's not that people weren't interested in hacking the PS3 for piracy. It's just he people with the skill and money to do it have little interest if they have a legit method like OtherOS. Sony locked them out of the GPU functions in otherOS so they were constantly trying to figure out how. When they did Sony took OtherOS away with the firmware updated. This made those people who are very skilled move down the path of a mod chip which has the added benefit of all the morally corrupt people who want to use the chip to pirate will be able to use it to pirate or home brew. OtherOS ultimately was an anti-piracy measure as shown by how long it has taken to crack since it was taken away.

For myself it's knowing that every game I pirate steals money right out from their greedy little hands. These huge companies like EA and Sony who screw their customers and their staff alike for their C*Os err, shareholders. That's why sometimes I pirate the same game three or four times! Thats like taking $200 right out of their pockets! i don't even plan on owning a PS3 but already I have amassed a pretty substantial library of "backups" (and even backup backups!). Take that fat-cats!

Which is one of the reasons why I did not. Closed platforms tend not to get indie games or legitimate mods. If Half-Life were for a closed platform, for instance, there wouldn't have been a Counter-Strike.

The 360 has been hacked for a long time, and has a thriving homebrew scene. I currently have a completely redone dashboard (that replaces the MS one) and a ton of arcade and console emulators on mine. Previous to the current hack (that allows unsigned code execution) their was a hack for the DVD-Rom firmware that allowed you to play with burned disks.

Where can I find information about such 360 hacking? Even just to play import games (I know that some will play anyway but not all) Googling shows basically nothing except some references to a hack that worked for a single month in 2006, and a later hardware hack that has no information about anything except the hack itself.

It's generally referred to as the JTAG hack. It requires minor soldering and modification of the 360. It does not work on every revision of the 360 currently. Frankly, if you are not savvy enough to find the info with Google, you are better off not bothering or paying someone else to do it.

Depends how well the games are coded. PC games tend to plan for cheaters from the beginning since it's an open platform. Consoles might not because the closed nature means less hackers, but they really should... ports of PC games should in theory work better (but I hear TF2 doesn't hold up that well on the 360).

This is the exact reason that I refused to buy a PS3. When the "Other OS" option was not just removed from the Slims, but removed from existing machines as a mandatory upgrade, that made the platform a no-go.

You don't need a closed platform to deal with wallhackers and aimbots. Steam runs on a ton of PCs, and VAC catches and bans forever a crapload of people daily who attempt to try this stuff. Similar with WoW. Blizzard's Warden has evolved to a point where only the gold farmers who have hundreds of th

Since they are offshore, PCI-DSS is not an issue, nor if there is ever a link found, there would be any criminal penalties applied.

PCI regulations are not a national framework. Just because they are offshore doesn't mean they do not have to "theoretically" comply. Now, if they don't care about breaking the law and/or regulatory frameworks, that is a different story.

Exactly what I mean. If an offshore gold seller hands their credit card information to another group who creates accounts on a MMO for blackhat reasons, the gold seller doesn't have to worry about violating such guidelines. Even if they are caught, if they are in a country that isn't on buddy-buddy terms with the West, the seller likely will face zero consequences.

Yes, Security through Obscurity hasn't been a good strategy for decades now. As the poster points out, this wouldn't have happened if they wouldn't have killed the OS boot option - the only reason these machines get hacked is because people want to run other stuff on there as well (whether or not that's a good idea). The bootleggers and modchip makers only take what's readily available on the market and commercialize it - the margins are razor thin and risks vs. reward are high, they don't have the money to

That's a pretty big assumption. Firstly the dongle thing is clearly intended for piracy, it comes complete with "backup functionality", a GUI for that etc. I don't see any mention of booting Linux anywhere. Secondly whatever strategy Sony used, it clearly worked - PS3 is more than half way through its probably lifetime and has never been usefully hacked before. Time will tell if they can figure out how it was done and renew the protection - or not.

Hey there , you might want to note that the backup option works for people who want to.. say... back up their current games? It's not an ISO loader, it will allow you to copy games to the hard drive and run them. If you have the disc, you most likely own it. Worst case, you borrowed it from a friend which puts you back on par with a guy who borrows a DVD from his friend an watches it on his player in his house instead of yours.

That's a pretty big assumption. Firstly the dongle thing is clearly intended for piracy, it comes complete with "backup functionality", a GUI for that etc. I don't see any mention of booting Linux anywhere. Secondly whatever strategy Sony used, it clearly worked - PS3 is more than half way through its probably lifetime and has never been usefully hacked before. Time will tell if they can figure out how it was done and renew the protection - or not.

Or, PS3 is more than half way through its lifetime, and lots of people never bought it because they couldn't play backed up games. That's one of the reasons I never bought it.

Why, you ask? Well, because there is no way I'd be buying any games, ever again, based on some 'reviews'. Or trailers. Ever again. And I can't test the games in the store where I am buying PS3 (no idea how it works in the USA, though).

What? I'm failing to see how some of this is Security through Obscurity. There was a security hole in the other OS that they couldn't think of a way of patching without removing the core functionality, so they removed it. That makes sense from a security standpoint.

They're going through security through security. They patch holes, make improvements, and get better at this whole thing. The PS1 was hackable in 1 wire. The PS2 required an additional circuit board for a mod chip. The PS3 isn't pragmatically hackable in that way, because they improved their security. Now someone found a hole in the USB stack. This will probably be patched too.

When you say security through obscurity, you usually mean "nobody is going to type in 'website.com/passwords' into the server!" The way you're using it, it makes it sound like any DRM even on a closed platform is doomed. And while that is possible, the pragmatic advantages of avoiding PS1-levels of piracy mean that the program has basically been a success.

There are no security holes in "the other OS" -- they just effed up their core design, if that. There is no theoretical reason, nor even a practical one, why running third party code on PS3 would lead to piracy or any such thing. Assuming that the platform was designed correctly for that. It's simple enough to let the hardware access encrypted discs only when trusted firmware is being run. You run linux or whatever "Other OS" you like, and you get a plain old DVD or BLU-RAY drive, that you can use to play e

There was a security hole in the other OS that they couldn't think of a way of patching without removing the core functionality, so they removed it. That makes sense from a security standpoint.

How can you call this "security" even if you trust every word they say? E.g. in order to prevent this new USB exploit, if they simply claim they "can't fix" the software bug would it be OK for them to disable the USB ports in the next firmware update altogether? Too bad you used them to charge controllers, copy pictures from camera, etc.?

Security should refer to the product and the features you have. If you throw away the product and/or remove its core features it's not security of that product, because it's not the same product: what if they disable the Internet browser in the name of "security," then image gallery, then media functionality, how about the bluray player too? How much of the features would they have to remove before you say - hey, I'm not going to call it "makes sense from a security standpoint" anymore because it doesn't do what it claimed it would when I bought it?

Yes, by one wire, the Playstation required a piece of steel wire, AKA a spring to hold the "door closed" button down when the door was open. The more invasive method would be to take a copper wire and solder the circuit closed instead of using the spring.

Load a "legit" game and pull the disc out, and stick in your burned copy of another game, and voila! The burned copy runs. You never even needed a modchip to begin with.

I'm not convinced all of those people are wallhacking and aimbotting. I've seen some ridiculous playing in-person... People able to see your rate of speed, where you're likely to go, and able to lob a grenade over a wall into your head. There have definitely been people that I would have sworn were botting, but in fact were just wasting their lives.

I feel like FPS games get ruined once people get good enough to just dominate the competition. That's harder to do on consoles due to aiming with the sticks a

The whole reason I bought a PS3 was because it was a closed platform, and because it was a closed platform, it was harder to hack the games. I like playing FPS games and they are absolutely ruined as soon as you have to deal with wallhacks and aimbots. Will this new hack open the door to programs like that?

Depends what was defeated. For example, on the Xbox360, you can pirate games with a hacked DVD drive, but you canot mod the games because you can't run unsigned code in the main OS. You can hack your Xbox

The whole reason I bought a PS3 was because it was a closed platform, and because it was a closed platform, it was harder to hack the games. I like playing FPS games and they are absolutely ruined as soon as you have to deal with wallhacks and aimbots. Will this new hack open the door to programs like that?

Actually, being a closed platform doesn't have a whole lot to do with running wallhacks and aimbots.

Normally your server has some kind of basic validation to make sure the software you're running is the software it expects. This is why many games require you to have the latest patch before joining a server. You don't generally modify the executable itself to create a wallhack or aimbot. Normally that's done with a second utility running simultaneously - a mod or an add-on the the game, basically.

Yeah, this is quite obviously a fake. For a PS3 hack to suddenly appear out of nowhere and a rumored $170 fee for the USB stick just stinks of rip-off.

The PS3 has resisted cracking for over three years, even the great Geohot tried and failed to even make a dent. The fact that it's been impossible to play cracked games on the PS3 has worked the pirate community into such a tizzy that it's likely we'll see more scams like this in the future.

"even the great Geohot ripped off other people's work and failed to make a dent"

FTFY. Trace over-current spiking was my idea.

I'm betting the USB stick does the same thing but with some other automated software, because the data line on the USB ports runs down that same trace. That trace is the direct vulnerability past the hypervisor.

The over-current trick has been used in MANY systems to bypass hardware restrictions by forcing it into a failure mode for repair. From Tom-Tom devices, to the original XBox console, now it's been used on the PS3.

Here's your requested information. I gave you more than you needed so you could grab a PS3 for yourself, pop out the mobo, flip it over, and start hacking for yourself so maybe you can help us figure out WTF these other UNKs are.

They already told me they won't do this when I complained about "Other OS" removal.

Quote from Playstation Consumer Services:"There would not be able reason to remove the features of your PS3 System that you have mention, card readers USB ports or backwards compatibility. They are physical attributes that your PS3 System possesses and do not present a security threat as the option that Install other OS does in this case does."

Can't help but point out that this wouldn't have happened if Sony hadn't decided to yank the Boot Other OS option.

If you really believe that this product is of absolutely no interest to people who want to run backups of games they have borrowed from 30,000 friends off the internet for an indefinite trial, then I have a bridge to sell you.

The point he was making is that a lot of hackers are not crackers. If there is no challenge to running Linux on something, why bother running it? If there _is_ a challenge, more people will be interested. Many of those with engineering backgrounds.

PS: I run Linux on my systems. The "why bother" refers to the fact that there is no "gain" by simply booting Linux on something that supports it, anyway.

I thought that pretty much everyone who's looked at the PS3 security has found it to be pretty ironclad. The hypervisor was supposed to be obscenely difficult to get around, even if you did find an exploit.

If that's true that sucks. Pretty much ensures that all debug modes in future consoles will limit functionality to "wipe" and "only install one specific signed firmware" if they're included at all. Every console sent to be repaired will have their save games erased.

That is already the case and always has been. Sony do not repair the units, they just send you a refurbished unit with no effort to salvage your data. Herein lies a sticky issue. Those of us with the good original fat models are in for problems when they fail. Sony have run out of them and will send a later model. Sounds good? Not when you consider the original machines had back compatibility, SACD support, more card slots etc, that the new

They're even bigger control freaks than Apple (this is the studio that gave us the rootkit fiasco [wikipedia.org], after all). I suspect this will set off an arms race, with Sony going to some pretty crazy limits to stop hacks. Of course, they did start this arms race themselves by removing the "Other OS" option (and even earlier by using the hypervisor to gimp the PS3). They may come to really regret that decision.

I think most of you are missing the fact that this is running on a debug unit which already has the capability to run unsigned code and code off of hard drives with no restrictions. The USB dongle has nothing to do with that, until this can be show running on a non-debug unit this is very bogus.

The "Install Packages" option at the top of XBM could also mean it's just running a 'demo' firmware, not necessarily a true Dev/Debug console. (note, not 100% sure whether Demos can run unsigned code).

What an amazing technical accomplishment. I can't help but be amazed at the skills of the hardware engineers and software developers who made this accomplishment possible.

SONY managed to build a platform that resisted being cracked for almost FOUR YEARS. AMAZING! Despite the fact that every ps3 game comes on a blu-ray disc that lots of hardware can read, and the fact that a ps3 must have in hardware all of the decryption keys in order to play a game, the platform has withstood 4 years of determined assau

This was done on a Debug Console. If you look at 0:44 on the video, you can see the "Install Packages..." option at the top of the list in the XMB....so in other words, nothing unusual, folks. This type of thing could always be done on a Debug Console...

Can't help but point out that this wouldn't have happened if Sony hadn't decided to yank the Boot Other OS option.

why? Can somebody please explain? the linked site seems down so maybe that's what I'm missing.

because nobody uses mod-chips to pirate games, they only use them to boot linux and run homebrew, since computers are so expensive and PS3s are so cheap, this is the only option that some people have. There aren't many pieces of consumer electronics that can run linux, you know.

Can't help but point out that this wouldn't have happened if Sony hadn't decided to yank the Boot Other OS option.

why? Can somebody please explain? the linked site seems down so maybe that's what I'm missing.

because nobody uses mod-chips to pirate games, they only use them to boot linux and run homebrew, since computers are so expensive and PS3s are so cheap, this is the only option that some people have. There aren't many pieces of consumer electronics that can run linux, you know.

Most of the pirates don't have the technical abilities to hack a console. The people who do have the technical ability and inclination to hack a console, won't bother if they can tinker with it themselves without bypassing the security, which OtherOS allowed them to do. By removing OtherOS, they were basically asking the people with the skills, ability and inclination to bypass their security so that they could put another OS back on.

The initial heavy lifting to hack the original XBox, 360 and Wii were done by people trying to put Linux on them.

The initial heavy lifting to hack the original XBox, 360 and Wii were done by people trying to put Linux on them.

I'm going to back up AC on this one, at least with respect to the Wii. Team Twiizers [wiibrew.org], the team of hackers (as in, tinkering, not cheaters) have released multiple tools to not only allow and facilitate non-pirate homebrew software to run, they also actually have made efforts to fix critical flaws in Nintendo's design of the Wii. This includes ways to recover a bricked console, which came into play when Nintendo's own official system updates (designed to block homebrew and piracy indiscriminately) were sloppy to the point of being capable of bricking unmodified Wiis.

Team Twiizers also go out of their way to specifically discourage and hamper piracy, including making their software run upside-down on-screen if you've hacked your Wii so much that you must be using it for piracy. They really want to avoid large-scale piracy, because it'll just give Nintendo the incentive to try and lock the Wii back down, depriving everyone of the non-piracy uses for homebrew. They'll happily help with installing Linux on your Wii, and there are guides for using it as a media center, a ScummVM host, and even a VNC client. You can also emulate pretty much every game console in history up to the PS1, as well as MAME, but finding roms (and whatever trouble that might cause) is up to you. However, they make it clear that discussions of piracy are unwelcome.

I understand your post to be sarcastic. But a PC with a gaming video card that can display on both an HDTV and the SDTV that one already owns isn't cheap. It's especially not cheap if you try to buy a "home theater PC" that comes in a high-wife-acceptance-factor case so that it will fit next to a TV.

PS3 comes put together. How much does the labor to put together a PC cost?

Now, I really don't care about the case - because you really don't need to see the box.

If you walk around to the side of the TV, you see the case hidden behind the TV, and that's where the wife acceptance factor drops through the floor. Google Products says an HTPC case alone costs $100 and OEM Windows costs $100, so that doesn't leave much room in your $350 budget for the motherboard, CPU, RAM, video card, hard drive, and optical drive.

computers are so expensive and PS3s are so cheap, this is the only option that some people have. There aren't many pieces of consumer electronics that can run linux, you know.

You can run Linux on any ugly x86 box, but this is not enough for everybody. I am interested in the possibilities of the Cell processor, and the nice and quiet case would be a great bonus. If your only argument is "running Linux", then you can have my old Pentium MMX box and knock yourself out. It runs Linux, and it should run Windows as well, so obviously it should cover everyone's computing needs.

I also think that having a nice CPU limited to playing closed games (a political limitation, not technical)

Yeah, and every day many crimes are done with guns, which clearly proves that guns only exist in order to enable crime. Obviously the inventor of the gun was a criminal. Right?

Of course, as soon as the mod chip exists, pirates will use it. And it may well be that they outnumber the other users. But that doesn't tell you the slightest bit about the motivation of the person who originally created the mod chip.

OK, that might very well be so, and it would make sense. The irony would just be unbearable. At least we can laugh at sony now.

Although this "news" does not even mention if booting linux is possible at this point, this just highlights how it is possible to pirate games - which is somewhat confusing.Of course if they can boot games its possible they have enough control that they can boot other OS... but no details are mentioned.

Yeah I found it rather sad when he was like "now this is what you've all been waiting for!", I thought he was going to load Other OS - but instead he demonstrates that you can now pirate games.. what an asshole..

I think you are missing the point of the argument that others are making. Let's take your two circles. The first is the size of a quarter and represents users that want to run Linux, and the second circle is the number of people who want to pirate games and that is 50 meters in diameter. However, you will find that not everyone in either circle has the technical proficiency to actually do the hacking, but the average technical aptitude of people in the Linux circle is far greater than the mean aptitude in the piracy circle. The real comparison needs to be between the people who want to run Linux, have the technical ability to do the hacking and are willing to invest the time to do it versus to the people whose motivation is piracy. The argument that is made is that the Linux circle now shrinks to the size of a dime, whereas you would need a microscope to see the piracy circle.

Your paper is correct. Where your logic issue comes into direct conflict with reality is your assumption that the large circle contains within it anyone capable of a real hack of the PS3. It dose not. On the other hand a high percentage of those in your quarter sized circle can. They did not hack because they had what they wanted. Now that Sony has removed it they did the work to "Fix the situation".

The homebrew guys are generally more motivated and talented then the pirates. Almost all console hacks come from the homebrew guys so that they can run their own stuff (and linux).

The pirates tend to take homebrew code and use it to run pirated games.

The entire time that PS2 had the "Other OS" option it was not cracked, because the homebrew community could already run their stuff. Compare that to XBOX and WII both of which have been broken a long time ago. As soon as Sony closed off the homebrew community, the inevitable would happen.

Of course its not so black and white, there is overlap between homebrew and pirates, but not as much as you might assume. Take a look at TeamTwizzers long campaign against pirates from using their code. They even tried in the beginning to have a dialogue with Nintendo about ways to support homebrew and keep the pirates out.

Going back to PS2; even with the "Other OS" option the advanced graphic features were locked, so homebrew games could never take full advantage of the hardware (neither could Other OS be used for pirate games). Some months ago a way was found for full hardware access, and not long after that Sony reacted by removing the Other OS feature.

I know, thats why this story is surprising, because its exactly the opposite as what you just said.

Otherwise they would have at demoed booting linux at least.Also, I have not read any text of the official release so I don't know if they mention any of this, but this might very well just be coincidence. Or maybe not..

Except that the only reason that people by these mod chips is to play burned games. To claim this has anything to do with homebrew or being able to install Linux is naïveté to the highest degree.

Because there's no way someone would modchip a Wii (before software homebrew was refined to its current pretty-damn-easy standard) in order to plug a mass-storage USB device in and use their console as both a home media center and a game machine. That could never, ever happen. It's inconceivable.

Oh, wait. A simple Google search returns a bunch of sites that want to sell you the (free) homebrew software (in violation of copyright--yes, Team Twiizers' homebrew software is original, not stolen from Nintendo, so they technically hold copyright), and they tout being able to use your Wii to play back pretty much any type of video or sound file VLC can understand. You lose. Player 1 insert coin.

I agree with all you have said but one thing: if it were the hackers who have enabled this hack they would have demoed booting OtherOS, downgrading or whatever.But clearly it is the pirates here who have done the hack from start to finish. Unless they borrowed it from other "homebrew" guys who were keeping it in private..

Minor addition: There is nothing illegal about "jailbreaking" a device as the courts decided a couple weeks ago. The illegal acts are committed by the pirates, not the people who get the code working, nor the homebrewers.

The PS3 was secure through obscurity (besides any actual security present), much like the Wii was in its infancy (Wii drivechips notwithstanding, those are a whole different ballgame). Obscurity works a lot better than security for consoles, because they are big, complex systems that inevitably have holes. Obscurity is useful up until the first hack is published, which is when people finally get to poke at dumps of your software and expose your bugs. The more you can delay that from happening, the better. The Wii did a good job of this by encrypting and signing every piece of data on Wii game discs, for example. There were bugs, but nobody could figure them out without access to decrypted binaries.

We don't know if someone involved in PS3 homebrew hacking had anything to do with this, but it's certain that whoever did this at the very least used techniques developed as a result of the Other OS remioval during development. Specifically, until the Other OS fiasco happened, there was no way to dump PS3 software and analyze it for exploits. Now there is.

Both the Wii and the PS3 obscurity-breaking hacks were almost identical: RAM glitching to escalate privileges from an unprivileged mode in order to access secure areas. The Twiizer Attack on the Wii glitched the RAM address lines in order to dump secure software and keys from insecure GameCube mode, and geohot's PS3 exploit used RAM glitching in order to make the hypervisor unwillingly give you read/write access to secure RAM while in insecure Other OS mode. When software is obscure, hardware is the only way to go. This Wii attack paved the way for Wii software exploits, and certainly this PS3 USB device is based upon exploits uncovered by dumping via the memory glitching exploits released earlier this year after Sony pulled Other OS.

So yes, Sony basically asked for this by pulling Other OS and angrying legitimate hackers who used Other OS, and now they got what they asked for. I'm just glad some piracy company did it first instead of repeating the story of the Wii where pirates piggyback on homebrew.

The one sad, sad thing is that this is called "PS3 jailbreak". Jailbreak is a very specific term that describes breaking out of a filesystem jail (e.g. on the iPhone), and it's being used on the PS3 purely for "brand recognition". This will just make people associate jailbreaks with piracy.

why? Can somebody please explain? the linked site seems down so maybe that's what I'm missing.

While one of my siblings states that "nobody uses mod-chips to pirate games", this isn't exactly true.
The first modders aren't doing it to pirate games. They simply want to write their own apps and run their own code on a different platform, or they want to fool around with the hardware and learn how it works, without having to pay 10s of thousands of dollars for development machines.

So, they build mods that allow running of unsigned code. This was true for the Wii, the 360, NDS, etc.
If there is a close

Can't help but point out that this wouldn't have happened if Sony hadn't decided to yank the Boot Other OS option. why? Can somebody please explain? the linked site seems down so maybe that's what I'm missing.

I worked for a phone store a few years back, and some of our motorola models(with miniUSB jack) could only be charged using motorola brand chargers because of currency issues.

And ipods/iphones are the same way. Sneaky drop resistors tweaking the voltage specs on the lines. (nothing digital, just a very basic analog "signature") But they did appear to have a legitimate reason for doing it, it communicates the amount of current the ipod can safely try to draw from the charger, allowing for both aftermarket

Have the devices with the hardware ID have special functionality, similar to MagicGate memory sticks. In bygone times, the early Sony "MP3" [1] players would only work with special memory sticks which supported their encryption system.

[1]: Some were technically encrypted ATRAC3 players and would require transcoding. Others would directly encrypt the MP3 files without requiring the quality loss.